We all have dragons to slay and sometimes your dragon is you...(My journey to lose weight, get my blackbelt, and have a baby)

Friday, September 7, 2012

more hope

I picked up the book "Metabolic Effect Diet" yesterday and have read about 50% of the book. It is a good book and interestingly it fits in with a lot of what I have been doing so far. I would recommend the book to anyone. The advice is solid and interestingly works well with a Paleo based diet.

The book basically has a questionnaire that helps you identify what kind of metabolism you have. There are three types: sugar burner, mixed burner, and muscle burner. If you have ever read any of Gillian Michaels' books she has the same three types of metabolism listed but calls them by different names. According to this book, I am a sugar burner. Basically my body burns through sugar too fast which creates craving for more sugar. But, really if I eat less sugar/more protein the cravings stop and my body works better (yup!). So, all of this I have known for a long time. The diet laid out in the book for my type is just like the Primal Blueprint books diet with one or two tweaks. They deal with carb and fat intake slightly differently.

What I believe is the best part of the book is the exercise advice. This is where I have been failing in my opinion. They suggests sugar burners walk daily 15,000-20,000 steps per day and around 30 minutes. Usually 2,000 steps is considered a mile. So, they are telling me I should try to walk between 7 1/2 to 10 miles a day. Now I have a bad knee so walking outside is hard for me. Usually I do best, at this weight, walking on a treadmill. Our treadmill died a while back. But, today I am joining a gym so I can get my steps per day!!! I am really excited about this. A very affordable gym opened up a mile from our house. I am just really excited to get on a treadmill, with my ipod on, and walk all those steps.

This is just a very brief description of what is in the book. It is a great book. And, it made me feel better about what I should be doing. But, I think there is one last piece of the puzzle and that is my attitude.

I literally feel so stressed out about getting the weight off that I feel like I've had 5 cups of espresso coffee almost all of the time. I obsess about getting the weight off and if I am doing enough to get it off, just about every minute of every day. Tuesdays and Thursday nights are the worst since that is when my husband goes to karate and I stay behind. I just keep thinking how far away I am from getting to my goals and I just completely stress out. My husband pointed out to me yesterday that all that stress is producing adrenaline which could be the "hormone imbalance" that my doctor was trying to describe. The proof for this are the few times I have been really relaxed about weight loss (like after my sinus surgery last year). During these times I gave myself permission to relax and the weight just came off without effort. It is time for me to relax and just trust in the process. Wish me luck with that!

2 comments:

Great news on the gym! There's something so good about being able to get on that treadmill and just zone out to the iPod. You might want to check out some of the other lower-impact cardio machines they may have. When I was going to our local gym, the arc trainer was amazing.

One thing I think you're noticing as you continue your research is that ultimately, the trustworthy sources of information end up telling you the same thing. Oh, it's packaged differently, but as you're seeing with this book, with Jillian Michaels, with Paleo, it all comes back to certain givens.

The stress factor cannot be discounted -- you're very smart to pay attention to it. Just don't stress about it... arrrgh! Stupid Catch-22, LOL. But yeah, you've got it :)

Amanda-love your comments!! I really think the treadmill (or other kind of machine) will really help my stress levels. I've always depended on that to get rid of my stress. Not having access to it has been hard. I can't wait to get on that machine and zone with an ipod. Absolutely the best stuff for stress!!